Today at 11: Chat With Food Critic Ann Limpert

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Join us today at 11 AM to chat with Ann Limpert. Have a question about the latest restaurant openings? Next week’s James Beard awards? Or maybe you just need a dinner recommendation. Leave a question now for Ann, then tune in this morning.

Ann: Good morning, chatters! Today I’m starting with a little food news. I just chatted with Kinship chef/owner Eric Ziebold, who let me know that he’ll be joining the ranks of local chefs expanding to unexpected locations (did you know there’s a Zaytinya in Frisco, Texas?). He’s bringing a branch of his sophisticated Shaw restaurant to…a former Ralph Lauren store in Hawaii?

Sounds odd, but to Ziebold, it makes total sense.

For one, it brings him closer to his travel obsession: Japan. He says the negatives—mainly the grueling back-and-forth trips across the country—were outweighed by the inspiration he gets from traveling (the idea for a new non-alcoholic pairing menu at his tasting room, Metier, was triggered by a recent visit to Tokyo). “I was in Japan in January for a few days, and when I came back, everyone was like, ‘you have so much energy,’” Ziebold says. And he expects there will be some synergy between the two locations. He’s currently trying to source chu-toro belly in Hawaii that he can use in DC.

His Waikiki Beach restaurant, like the one here, will be divided into two concepts. But instead of the high-end Metier, there will be a casual Kinship Cafe serving breakfast (pain au chocolat, Portuguese egg custard tarts) and lunch (rice bowls, noodle dishes). The dining room’s menu will use Hawaiian, Polynesian, and Portuguese cookery as a starting point, but Ziebold stresses the restaurant will be western. And yes, he’s bringing his lobster French toast. “But instead of Maine lobster, it’ll be Kona lobster.”

The restaurant is slated for March 2020.

Onto your questions! Ask them in the form below; the chat transcript shows up underneath.